Endless Motion
by Glowing Fish
Summary: A psychological look at what it means to be in endless motion.


Before anything else, he was aware of the existence of motion. Before the awareness of self, before the awareness of environment, there was only the simple, pure sensation of moving forward, of endless speed and progress in a line, the blurred existence of an unknownable world coming forth at him constantly. The awareness of motion would suggest the awareness of time, but that would come later.

The awareness of motion split first: the constant forward motion irregularly punctuated by jarring leaps upwards, the freedom and fear of sailing through the air only to be returned to the ground in a dull crash, with no pause to the main sensation, which was movement.

And then? Then the sudden, slow, inexplicable dawning of a sense of self. What was this thing that moved, that ran, that leaped, that felt compelled to always move forwards? There was a body, legs to run, arms (small ones) to reach forward, a head to balance and to see. And with this sense of self, came a sense of the environment, something other than self. From a bare "other" that existed only as a measure of the neverending speed, the environment resolved itself into a mosaic of sand, of distant mountains, and of course, of the looming xerophillic vegetation that insistently hurtled towards him, prompting his leaping. And in the sky, his counterparts, moving towards him with great speed, leathery darts of muscle and bone, the other hazards that defined his motion.

And then, blossoming like a dark flower within his breast, something new: fear. He had been aware of self before, but now he had something that augmented and clarified it: fear. He knew not why, but in his mind he suddenly became aware that his motion, and his body, would be subsumed and erased at the fearsome objects in his path. The motion before had been voluntary, the muscles had moved of their own accord before his consciousness manifested, but now the tensed muscles and lunging bodies obeyed a new master: fear.

And now, only now, did time enter. And the time further sharpened his awareness. Who was he? Where was he? Why was he? Why could he not stop running, even if he would choose to do so? How long had this endless featureless running been going on? He saw the world flicker around him, the endless motion of cacti and pterodactyls, his own pumping legs, and the slower cycle of sun and moon in the endless sky above. Where in the flow of time had the dim spark of consciousness flared forth into the mighty fire that lit up everything around him?

And then, with this sense of time, a new type of fear came over him. Before, he had felt the fear of what if this stopped, but now, he felt the fear of what if this continued, his shallow existence trapped in a cycle of running. And he was torn between two fears: the sharp fear of what he called "death", and the yawning, dull fear of the continuance of this running. His body didn't feel tired, but he thought it should. And after a long time, after the two warring fears had made battle in his mind and exhausted him in a way that the running and scorching sun and endless thudding collisions into the sand could not, he made a decision: to leap into the arms of one of his adversaries, just to see what would happen.

One of the leather beasts with thrashing wings was upon him, he rose to meet it, time slowing down as two bodies impossibly drew together, inch by inch, his mind reeling between thoughts of regret and thoughts of release. And then, with the joining, he learned that this was not an end but a beginning, that all of the awareness that had slowly increased in his mind over-hours? Days? Years?- was as nothing compared to this awareness of an Other, an Other that was not doom but release and delight, who, he learned as they fell to the ground, had thoughts and feelings as he did, had their own story of growth and awareness, and was ready to usher him into a new journey of discovery, one not given by simple ordained motions, but instead one given of freedom, given of creativity and discovery, and given in companionship to another.

Far above them, in the deep sky, a blue object, geometrically precise as it drifted eerily across this alien landscape, looked down and felt a smile of recognition over what had happened. For his own kind, many prophecies must be fulfilled to find their Complimentation. Here, by chance, two little candle flames of awareness in an obscure ocean of loneliness had found the bright flame of the same. The shape, the alien, felt it was a sign that some day the same would come to it.


End file.
